


Art Cinema and Other Concerns

by FrauKatzen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Idk why my mind went there, Original work - Freeform, There are mentions of castration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 20:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17587622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrauKatzen/pseuds/FrauKatzen
Summary: “I read the paper this morning, and my sister was in it. My sister was in the newspaper, and I decided to go out with Benny. Benny, of course, slumped down like an unwatered plant on his butter-stained fold-down, was no help. He was droopy like Mondays. He was inevitably convenient but also dreary and annoying. He brought me to this movie. The fun-ender of all fun-enders.”Weird original work I stumbled across. Written 2013. I think it’s quite good, but I bet it’s not for everyone.





	Art Cinema and Other Concerns

"Have you ever felt as though your whole life has been a series of motions? The motions fade and so do the emotions until suddenly you're standing in a single moment of emptiness and you wonder where you even came from and why it now matters. The past—what the hell was that?"

The movie was black and white. Classic film noir, fedoras of a better generation and women in tight black gowns. And in the theater were probably thirty middle-aged lawyers, six couples dressed in flower dresses and sandals, and a group of pimply-faced teenagers. They giggled every few minutes. Mostly at themselves. I laughed at them, too, or I did with poor Benny. I also screamed at them. All internally, of course. Too external and real conflict would arise.

I read the paper this morning, and my sister was in it. My sister was in the newspaper, and I decided to go out with Benny. Benny, of course, slumped down like an unwatered plant on his butter-stained fold-down, was no help. He was droopy like Mondays. He was inevitably convenient but also dreary and annoying. He brought me to this movie. The fun-ender of all fun-enders.

A film that would give me existential nightmares. The meaninglessness in the world was not something I wished to find meaning in. The clear-cut sunlight made me happy. The after ring a guitar made (not the ring that was on my finger three months ago but I thought it would). Kittens on whiskers. Dyslexia.

I was not dyslexic, but my mind sure was. Today especially. It made me glad because it wouldn't let me focus on one thing for too long. Like, for instance:

I hoped Benny didn't read the paper. I wouldn't know, really. He worked in an office that probably got some. But which ones? Today was a Saturday. Surely he didn't order Saturday papers when he got the rest of the week free. Did he read the paper on Sundays? The New York Times or The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette? He seemed like a guy who would only read the comics. I only read the comics.

But then mom left me a message, and I went down to the corner store that was really one I drove to—not walked—and I got a paper. My sister's name cutting—falling—into my line of sight at the bottom of the page—thankfully no picture.

I could ignore all this when I went with Benny, whom I met through a friend of a friend at a salty sports party. Benny didn't like sports which is why I got to talking to him outside on the apartment balcony. He told me he liked people, which is ironic because I'm sure people didn't like Benny half as much.

He had his hand laid out face up on our shared armrest. I focused on the images playing.

"Honey," said the guy with the shadowed brow—Guy, I think his name was—to the femme fatale Gloria. "When you get to being as low as me, you realize it isn't so bad down here. It's the sky that you can fall from."

"But it's the ground that hurts," she said. She pulled down her dress that had been hiked up and turned around.

"Art cinema, huh?" said Benny, opening the paint-chipped push door. I walked through the door next to the one he was holding. Outside the sky was cut in half with dim clouds. Above the cinema entrance I looked at the big black letters depicting the name of the film we just saw. We walked toward our cars. "I love art cinema. When I was a kid, my dad took me to see Chelsea Girl. It was great."

"Was that art cinema?" I said, looking in my purse for a piece of gum. "Want one?" He shook his head, licking his thin lips.

"Well, I didn't see it in an art cinema, but I saw it. It really makes you think, you know?"

"About what?" Benny wiped sweat off his face with his hand and wiped it on his plaid shirt. I stopped to get a rock out of my shoe. "Damn."

"The world. The way it works. People are up and down and things are synchronized. That has to mean something."

"What do you mean 'synchronized'?" The pebble rolled away into the curb. I straightened and followed Benny.

"Parallels. Like how someone in Africa can be starving and I can be hungry and so I say, 'I'm literally starving,' and not mean it in the same way if that person were to say it. Like, they literally are starving."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Even as the words formed on my lips, my mind flashed back to what I had read that morning.

"How is that stupid?" We had gotten to our cars, parked next to each other. Facing each other, we stopped. Benny was even sweatier now—I'm sure I looked the same, but I always pitied him more. He never seemed to get it.

"Like," I said, "if you want to talk about something being 'synchronized' don't talk about starving people and your own experience with hunger pains. Everyone gets hungry. That's not something being parallel—that's biology."

"It's not the feeling—it's what I'm saying." Benny looked annoyed like I felt.

"I think you're overdramatic."

"Jen," he said. Some sort of emphatic thing he was going for. "We met because of synchronicity."

"How do you figure?" I fingered the keys in my hand.

"Yuna works with me and went to school with you. Toby works with you and went to school with me. That is what I mean. It was fate that brought us together."

"That's called a coincidence."

"A coincidence of fate."

I wanted in my car for more than just the air conditioning. "If that's how you want to think of it. I thought that whole movie was just a bunch of crap on how everything means nothing."

Benny gave me a look. "You totally missed the point."

"Which was?"

"I already told you, Jen."

"Look, this isn't really my thing."

"Then why did you agree to come?"

I shrugged. "I was bored."

"You were bored." Like I didn't know what I just said.

"Yes," I said. I opened up my car and slid in. "Thanks for the popcorn, Benny. Let's do it again."

My first patient's name on Monday was Marvin. He was a repeat offender who had re-strained his groin in a recreational soccer game. Every few months he came in and I would help him out of his wheelchair and go through exercises that would eventually lead him to be well enough to get hurt again.

People like him drove me nuts. My ex-fiancé was a repeat offender, too. His knee was the issue. And then it was an issue for four more times until finally he asked me to marry him and then he was suddenly better.

I appreciated the ring, but he didn't appreciate my job or my family. He said there were plenty of jobs and phones for me in Atlanta, where he wanted to take me. And, although I was not sure how much I appreciated my family anymore, I was glad I didn't follow him. He could be the CEO for another woman, which was what he had, and stretch his exhausted knee with someone else's helping hand.

The phone rang from my tiny office. I excused myself from Marvin, who was sweating slightly with the exertion of lifting his leg.

"Hello?"

"Call for you."

"Send them through." A pause.

"Jen?" I closed my eyes, putting my head against the wall next to my desk. "Jen?"

I gathered up my breath. "Yes? Holly?"

"Yes, it's me."

"Why are you calling? From where are you calling?"

"I'm downtown. With the police. Mom won't come."

"What makes you think I will come? I'm at work."

"I know. I called you. After work?"

I didn't answer for a long time. I thought about Benny and the paper. My sister was sick. So was Benny but in a more manageable way.

"Why won't mom get you?" I finally asked.

"You know why." She was mad, I could tell. Her voice always spiked when she was feeling manic. I almost laughed. Now she was manic in a whole new way.

"I want to hear you say it," I said because it felt good.

"Mom's ashamed."

"Of what?"

"Dammit, Jen, those guys were sick rapists."

I laughed, but I wasn't feeling happy. "And what are you?"

"Look, I don't want to talk about it on the phone. They want me to get off. Just—at least come and see me after work."

"What's the address?" She told me, and I wrote it down on a post-it.

I decided not to go see Holly right away—I couldn't figure out her angle. I went into the kitchen for a snack—that would help me think. I threw my coat on a chair at the table. Except I didn't expect to see the article right on top of it, which was stupid. I had left it there, afraid to really go near it and throw it away. So I just let it sit there for two days, festering like an unclean sore.

And it said what I didn't want to face so plainly. So easily. I bet the guy writing the article was excited, interested, fascinated so much that he would go write a screenplay for some indie horror film on it to get out of the newspaper writing business. Front page, bold and in capital letters—"SERIAL CASTRATOR CAUGHT." The fact that it was at the bottom of the page didn't help. I could still see it. I still felt like I felt when I first saw it.

I closed my eyes for a moment and then grabbed my coat that I had discarded on the chair. I reached for the newspaper, missing because I couldn't stop shaking enough to calm my fingers. Once I had it, I brought it outside to the trash can.

When I reentered the house, it took me a long time to breathe.

That's when I sunk my hand into my pocket and let my fingers caress my cell phone. I pulled it out, my wrist limper than I expected under its weight. I flipped it open and found my contact.

"Hello?" he said. "Jen? Is that you?"

"Yes," I said, "it's me."

"What's up?"

"I think you were right."

"About what?"

"Your stupid starving people thing. I think you were right. And I was wrong."

"Oh—thanks. You called to tell me this?"

"I still think your example was awful."

"I'm not perfect." We didn't speak for a bit. I tugged at the hem of my shirt.

"I'm just sorry."

"I know."

"Okay."

"What are you doing now?" He sounded good. I suddenly felt good.

"Nothing. Just got back from work."

"I'm almost done here. After work I'll come pick you up for food. Sound good?"

"Okay. After work."


End file.
